WorkLife.

Unusual School Promotes Abcs Of Flexibility

April 13, 1999|By Carol Kleiman.

Spring is the cruelest time of year for many working parents: They're scrambling like crazy to get their kids into day-long programs or to find child care for the several months when there is no school--but there is work.

Irv Hipschman, director of new business development for SleepQuest Inc., a health-care provider in Redwood City, Calif., doesn't have that problem. His children, Lauren, 12, and Aaron, 8, go to Children's International School in Palo Alto, a private school that operates on a 12-month schedule, with eight business holidays a year.

Vacation times are decided by parents, rather than being dictated by a rigid and antiquated school calendar.

And that's not the only unusual flexibility offered by the non-profit, independent school, which goes up to the 8th grade and is known for its high academic standards. Its core day is from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but certified teachers-- not baby-sitters or assistants--are in the classrooms from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at no extra cost to parents.

Hipschman, 49, and his wife, Susan Burnett, 44, a manager at Hewlett-Packard Co., can plan vacations or days off whenever they want, as long as their kids attend school at least 175 days a year. They also take turns driving to and from school at times their own schedules permit.

"The school provides a tremendous amount of flexibility for us, particularly since my wife travels so much," said Hipschman, who enrolled his children in the school in 1995, the year it opened. "We take a lot of short trips--my wife calls them `hooky days'--and keep the kids out for religious holidays and for longer periods of time. We don't worry that they're missing a whole heck of a lot because they're not. Instruction is individualized, so they just pick up where they left off."

The executive, who was a teacher for five years, says his children go to school more days than they did when they were in public school. Tuition for the school, which has 80 students and one teacher for every 10 pupils, is $9,960 annually. It has one paid administrator, director Margaret Ricks.

Hipschman and Burnett are typical of the working families the school is designed to support. Its philosophy makes so much sense that I wonder why there aren't more like it.

Even Fred Hess, an expert on the subject, hasn't heard of other schools like Children's International. "The old rhythms of summers off and locked-in vacation times and holidays just don't fit any more," said Hess, director of the center for urban school policy at Northwestern University.

Hess, who has a doctorate in educational anthropology, notes that an emerging year-round school movement in the U.S. is a breakthrough, but school hours generally remain inflexible.

"I'm taking my daughter, Sarah, age 14, out of school for two days to go to Montreal with me," said Hess. "She's studying French and I thought it would be very educational for her." But he had to justify her absence to her school, something that wouldn't happen at Children's International, which was founded by parents. All that Children's required was notifying the school in advance.

Last October, Sue Lowe, vice president of the board of trustees and a founder of Children's, and her husband, Greg Franklin, who works for Intellect Partners, a high-tech firm, took their daughters, 11 and 7, to Yellowstone National Park.

"It was a glorious vacation," said Lowe, a former consultant and now a full-time volunteer at the school. "We were all alone watching herds of buffalo."

That wouldn't have happened if her kids were in public school and had to take vacation during crowded summer months. "Having flexibility eliminates what was one of the biggest, craziest components of our lives," observed Lowe, who has advanced degrees in education. "I don't know how parents can do without it."